Novelist and screenwriter Alexander Stuart is commemorating the 20th Anniversary re-release of his novel The War Zone by offering up a signed copy of the new Authorhouse release. You can read my review of the novel here and read what’s new this edition on Stuart’s blog.

To enters just @reply to @AlexanderChow (his twitter name) with the hash tag #WarZoneNovel

“What experience in adolescence most shaped your life or work?”

Best answer in three tweets or less by midnight PST Sunday August 23rd 2009 wins a signed copy. [Full Disclosure: I am co-judging this twitter contest. You can follow me at @UncompletedWork.]

Stay tuned for my second part of “Stepping into The War Zone” where I review and compare The War Zone film to its novel counterpart.

Every once in a while I will read a book that infects my mind long after I’ve finished it. The War Zone By Alexander Stuart, a narrative of a young boy coping with the emotional destruction of his world,  haunts and calls to me.  I find it hard to ignore.

Despite the  storied 20 year history of both the novel and subsequent movie, I was ignorant of its existence. By happenstance, I came across the author’s twitter account. Stuart’s amiable demeanor online proves a contrast to the dark and uncompromising world of The War Zone.

And quite a history The War Zone has; the novel was stripped of the Whitbread Prize (now the Costa book awards.) An event that Stuart himself credits as far more helpful in promotion of his book than perhaps just receiving the award itself. Script adaptations of The War Zone by Stuart number in the tens, and it seemed a successful film adaptation would remain in “development hell” for all eternity. Here in Part 1, I will focus on the novel.

The Novel

The War Zone is a dark, unwavering narrative filled with elegant prose. A book oft touted as about incest and abuse, was to me, a deep and layered texture about middle-class suburban despondence. The true disconnectedness and alienation that is male adolescence (I’ve been there!) is compounded by a world spiraling out of control. As a reader, the comfort of familiarity is ripped away as an impending sense of dread and uneasiness builds. To be inside the head of a young boy, Tom, surprisingly evoked more pity than sympathy. All of Tom’s innocence, his childhood, become forever stained by the knowledge of his father’s sexual abuse of his sister Jessica. As I read, my mind stiffened. I braced for impending impact, almost certain of its trajectory. And suddenly, what I knew, was not what I knew. Tom’s fear and his inability to change the outcome of even his own life paralyzes the reader.

The bleak and muted English countryside enraptured me. Even though I’ve never been to the United Kingdom, Stuart conjures a middle class moroseness that I’m all too familiar with here in the States. I enjoyed the subtle, stifled elements of the world. There is a realness and depth that is unnerving. As a result, I have very little want to ever visit the Devon countryside.

In literature and film, victims of sexual abuse are too often painted as helpless and subdued, call it the “lifetime movie effect.” Here, Jessica presents as a strong character, and even appears to instigate sexual encounters with her father. While it is clear Jessica is the victim of sexual abuse, The War Zone paints in shades of grey. In an unflinchingly real look at sexual abuse, the reader is left with a conflicted view of the ‘relationship’ – Does Jessica truly believe she is having sex with her father of her own volition? Or is she so emotionally damaged that her only way to cope with this terrible abuse is to somehow to claim it as her own?

As I read, I was reminded of my first read of Anthony Burgess‘ A Clockwork Orange. A book in which the most utterly taboo things were explored in an equally unflinching light. As a younger reader I was shocked and delighted at the shifts and turns it offered. Like The War Zone; Clockwork haunted me long after I set it down.

For me, this was a deeply personal book. Some may ask “how could you enjoy something with such a horrid subject matter?” I’m not sure I have an exact answer to that. There is nothing ‘feel good’ about it. And yet, I found it captivating and meaningful. The War Zone has found a permanent place on my bookshelf.

(Merrel Note 6/12/2009 : I posted this review to twitter. I was delighted and surprised by the response from the author himself. “@UncompletedWork Wow! That’s an amazing review of my book. Thank you so much. I really feel that you *get* every element of it…” If this wasn’t humbling enough, he re-tweeted my review to share with his other followers.)

The Future of The War Zone

This fall will see the re-issue of the  20th Anniversary edition of The War Zone.  The fate of the film is a little less clear. The North American distributor of the film, New Yorker Films, recently shuttered its doors. DVD’s are currently being price gouged on Amazon and other sites for as much as $60. It is unknown whether a new distributor will re-release the film.  Luckily, Netflix does have the DVD and it is available for streaming.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Stepping into ‘The War Zone’ where I take a look at the Stuart adapted, and Tim Roth directed film.

Links

Alexander Stuart’s website
Alexander Stuart’s Twitter
Alexander Stuart’s Blog
IMDB page
Amazon

Writer and blogger Scott Kirsner, known for his CinemaTech blog and columns from publications such as Variety and The Boston Globe knows a thing or two about technology as it relates to the entertainment industry. His new book Fans, Friends and Followers takes a much needed look at new distribution models and ways of garnering a fan base for your work.

The old, large corporate distribution models are broken or are increasingly only working for few in dwindling numbers. We now, as Creative Professionals, can operate outside the confines of the old paradigm and are empowered to “pave our own way.” Fans provides a slew of concrete and anecdotal advice through interviews with Creative Professionals across the spectrum of movies, music, web, and books.

In likely the truest testament to what exactly this book encapsulates I thought I’d tell you just how I got a copy in my hand. I use twitter (follow me @uncompletedwork) and I followed @Cinevegas the twitter account for CineVegas Film Festival. They ran a brief interview with Scott Kirsner on their blog about the book. I commented and I won a signed copy of Fans along with a nice handwritten note from Scott. It was a result of an interactive and reciprocal series of events that empowered me to get involved — something key to garnering a fan base (more on that later.)

There is a largely recognizable shift in the exemplar of how films and music are being created and distributed. Many an article has been written, however, there are still unknown elements, partly because there is no “right” way to do it on your own. Kirsner does a good job of culling what has worked for other people with the caveat “not everything works for everyone.” There are new models always emerging.

Interacting with your Audience and Peers is Important

Long since past are the days where audiences are content only consuming content in a linear, one way path. While some portion of your audience will always consume passively, there are those who want to engage in a dialogue and be involved with you and your work.

For example, Jonathan Coulton uses audience driven booking via eventful through a “Demand It” feature that allows fans to request Coulton’s presence in any given city.  If enough people in, say Washington D.C. “demand” he come, then it’s financially and logistically viable for him to book a show there.

Jill Sobule, best known for her 1995 single I Kissed a Girl, took a novel approach to getting the fans involved. Armed with the website JillsNextRecord.com, Sobule reached out to her existing community of fans to finance the album California Years. Through paypal Sobule raised almost $90,000 dollars to produce the album. She offered various levels of contributions all the way up to “Weapons-Grade Plutonium Level” which entitled a chance to sing on a track on the album.

Throughout Kirsner’s interviews a pattern emerges: If your work is good, those interested will seek you out. But that simply is not enough. The guys at JibJab hit critical mass with “This Land.” It was partly a result of building a mailing list overtime. Over five years they organically grew list of over 100,000 fans. When the “This land” video hit, they leveraged the mailing list to get the word out, soon they were receiving half a million views a days.

“… it was the most effective $400 marketing campaign in history. It showed that if you have a relatively small, hardcore fan base, you can get exponential growth out of them if the content is really relevant.”

Involvement with those hardcore fans can spell a closer relationship with the community and have its benefits. Dave Kellett, the artist behind Sheldon Comics, commented that his super-fans are willing to pick him up from the airport or receive shipments for book signings.

“I think that those 20 percent of your fans, the super-fans, produce 80 percent of the kerfluffle around your strip. They produce the most blog posts, they support it financially, and they go out of their way to see how they can help, both in the the physical world and online.”

Fans, hardcore or otherwise, will look for ways to interact with you. Reach out,  leverage the social and video networks available to you as a way to initially garner a fan base or to keep in touch. First there was Friendster (remember them?) then came Myspace and Facebook, and most recently Twitter. I personally find Twitter to be an excellent tool to reach out and interact with fans and it is a good short form networking tool. I’ve connected with many screenwriters and filmmakers through twitter.

On the video side, YouTube is the soup-de-jour, but that’s quickly changing as smaller more niche based sites emerge. Vimeo, for example, is a great video sharing website designed specifically for creative content producers to exhibit their work. In fact, their uploading guidelines are very clear geared towards sharing works created by yourself. (Merrel note: Check out a music video I did a while ago on Vimeo.)

Creative Control

Undoubtedly one of the draws of not working for “The Man” is a lack of constraints on your creative control. Matt and Mike Chapman the brothers behind Homestar Runner and the lovably irritable StrongBad knew from the get go advertising wouldn’t be a part of their business model. Ultimately, they were able to generate revenue through DVD sets and t-shirts, but even then they remained very low key about the advertising:

“…we didn’t like ads … we don’t advertise the store at the end of our videos or anything. We could’ve made more money if we pushed the store more, but I wouldn’t have felt good about that.”

Jill Sobule shares a similar sentiment on the matter of having control of your creative endeavors. Her second album on MCA/Geffen, produced in part by Joe Jackson, never saw the light of day after Sobule was dropped from the label. She finds her newly adopted model better:

“Not to be cliche, but there is something really empowering about this – having your own schedule, your own timing”

Indeed, the record label game in the mid 1990′s was teeming with all kinds of opportunity at a price. Sobule relays what giving up that control meant to her:

“It’s the most awful thing in the world to go into a label and play things for them. I remember going into one label, and the guy said ‘I love your music but save your deeper lyrics for a book of poetry. And also, You’re not the youngest.’ I was, like thirty at the time. That just devastated me.”

Creative control also allows you the flexibility to experiment and reach out to the people and communities you’d like to without restraint. You don’t need permission from anyone to promote your work as you see fit.

Embrace New Ideas about Copyright Law and how People Consume Media

It’s no secret that fans don’t want to be arbitrarily restricted in how they wish to consume your music, book, or movie. Proprietary restraints that, for example, only allow you to play music on a single device are misguided attempts to protect copyright. The flip side is Creative Professionals (such as myself) obviously need to be paid for the work they do. It’s our life blood. So how does one strike a balance between protecting the rights of your works without alienating your fan base?

The Creative Commons allows you to specify licensing requirements for your work including attribution, non-commercial use and derivative work. It gives the fans greater flexibility in re-mixing or re-using your work. In 2008, Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor released the album Ghosts I-IV under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike License. He encouraged fans create and remix new music videos using the music from Ghosts.  Though Reznor had the institution of a record label behind him for much of the last 20 years he went independent with this record.

Musicians like Jonathan Coulton have also embraced this model of interactivity and less restriction. He offers DRM free mp3 downloads of his music for sale through his site. More telling is his views on how people use his music:

“One really big thing for me is the derivative works that people have created, using my music. Everything I do is under a Creative Commons license. People have made videos using “World of Warcraft” characters and put them on YouTube, Some of the videos have been seen millions of times. I don’t know how you could even buy that kind of exposure, and I got it for free.”

Director Timo Vuorensola shepherded the collaborative science fiction parody StarWreck over seven years until completion. The team was assembled across the internet with contributors all around the world. When the project was released in October 2005 the full movie was posted for download as a torrent, and then later uploaded to YouTube and Google Video. Embracing this bold model paid off, Vuorensola muses:

“Selling DVDs despite the free version is a funny thing, but people do it anyway.  I think you can double your income if you give something away for free. I don’t believe in piracy. It’s just people using the available technology… Some people watch the whole film on BitTorrent, but then want to support us by buying merchandise.”

“Be Remarkable and Create Remarkable Stuff”

I think what’s most important about the work that you do is that is must be uniquely and strikingly your own. As Kirnser puts it:

“In the crowded noisy party that is the internet, you don’t want to wear what everyone else is wearing… One of the secrets to succeeding in the era of digital creativity is doing something different.”

Make everything you do your own, keep at it, refine, tweak and interact. Eventually the organic growth will take you to the next level. Good luck!

Links:

PowerTools: A companion Wiki to the book. Check it out and add helpful links to the various sections. I have!

Buy Fans, Friends & Followers on Amazon

Chuck Tryon, author of Cinema: Movies in the Age of Digital Convergence review of Fans.

*All quotes come from Fans, Friends and Followers: Building an Audience and Creative Career in the Digital Age © 2009 CinemaTech Books. Excerpts are used for this review blog post and fair use purposes only.

Just when I thought there was no way possible that I’d ever pick up a copy of Pride and Prejudice ever again, television writer Seth Grahame-Smith had to come up with a novel yet bitingly clever concept. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Yes folks, that’s a real cover and a real book due out later this year. The publisher Quirk Books bills the books as “The Classic Regency Romance–Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!” As Grahame-Smith put it, Jane Austen “laid down the blueprint for a zombie novel.” The book features 85 percent text from the original Pride and Prejudice and there are some rumblings of movie studio interest. Watch out Simon Pegg/Nick Frost, perhaps we may even see an emergence of a new ZomDramCom genre.

If you are so inclined you can pre-order the book on Amazon.com.

And Cinema-Suicide has a bit of the dialog up:

“Come, Darcy,” said Mr. Bingley, “I hate to see you standing by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”

“I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it.”

“I would not be as fastidious as you are for a kingdom! I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and several of them are uncommonly pretty.”

Before Mr. Darcy could respond, a chorus of screams filled the assembly hall, immediately joined by the shattering of window panes. Unmentionables scrambled in, their movements clumsy yet swift; their burial clothing in a range of untidiness.

Guests who had the misfortune of standing near the windows were seized and feasted on at once. Elizabeth watched Mrs. Long struggle to free herself as two female dreadfuls bit into her head, cracking her skull like a walnut, and sending a shower of dark blood spouting as high as the chandeliers.